'Strand-In' to be held in Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- A “strand-in” scheduled on Sept. 19 in Washington, D.C, plans to address the issue of airline passengers getting stranded on the tarmac for hours.

The Coalition for Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights is hosting the event, which will be held inside of a mock plane made of plywood rigged to simulate the conditions stranded passengers often endure, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel said Thursday.

Zane Kelleher, a retired Eastern Airlines pilot from Fort Lauderdale, plans to attend the protest.

"You don't have to disembark passengers to make the level of comfort tolerable," he said.

One of the most notorious strandings happened in 1999 when Northwest Airlines had to pay $7.1 million to passengers who became stuck in Detroit during a blizzard.

Assistant Transportation Secretary Andrew Steinberg said in 2006 that 1,295 flights were delayed for more than three hours after departure, just a small amount compared to the 7.1 million flights made that year.

Complaints about ground delays had dropped from 753 in 2000 to just over 100 in 2006.